Mesoscopic phenomena span length scales that are considerably larger than atomic-bond distances, but small enough that classical continuum physics with materials properties and behavior averaged over many domains, or regions 10–100 nm in size, does not apply. The involved physical processes belong to a region bridging quantum mechanical and macroscopic continuum materials descriptions, which makes them critically important for the design, modeling, growth and characterization of ferroic nanostructures. Many such systems exhibit intriguing behavior with nontrivial dependence of their elastic, polar and magnetic degrees of freedom — including domain pattern formation and evolution — on shape, size and morphology.

Additional interesting effects may involve the influence of layering, composition variation and ionic diffusion. This symposium will bring together experts from academia, industry, and national laboratories to discuss the current state-of-the-art (and future directions) in theoretical modeling, synthesis, characterization, processing and applciations of ferroic nanostructures, with a primary focus on the influence of shape, size, morphology and interaction strength on their properties and functional behavior.

Proposed Sessions

Synthesis, characterization and processing

Chemistry and physics of ferroics at mesoscale

Nano to micro to macro: size dependence of ferroic behavior and properties